Generally speaking, when I hear someone declare that [librarians, lawyers, law students, library students, fill in the blank] need to become programmers, I make a face that kind of looks like this:

>:(

However, I’ve realized that I actually DO need to learn some programming skills (and brush up on the technical skills that I already have.)   I still don’t think that everyone needs to become a programmer, but the open law world in which I exist is small, requires a certain specialized knowledge on top of tech skills and is not profit driven.   Basically, if I don’t get the skills that will allow me to create tools, I don’t think I’ll be able to get someone to make it for me.

I have a couple of goals for my time here at Harvard.  The main one is to do “something useful.”  Nebulous phrase, I know.  Basically, I want to in some way add to the knowledge base or otherwise advance the cause of free and open law.  But a secondary goal of this year is self improvement.  I’m not going to end up with any more letters after my name, but I want to come out of this experience…improved.  New skills, new knowledge, new ideas of what to do…that sort of thing.  I’ve been out of school for ten years and am doing a hard reboot.

Yeah, like that.

Besides, I can’t spend 8 hours a day doing data entry.  I just can’t, y’all.  And I do want to emphasize that I’m not just working on my tech skills.  I just signed up for an EdX course on The History of the Book in the 17th and 18th century.    Not to go into a huge digression, but books are technology and I think the future of technology (especially legal technology) can be found by knowing a bit about the history of publishing.  But that’s a blog post for another day.

So the million dollar question is…what languages should I learn? What skills should I have?   In library school (ten long years ago) I learned basic HTML, Unix and database design (using MS Access.)   I’ve picked up some CSS and PHP along the way, but by that I mean I can edit those if someone has already made it.  So basically I don’t feel like I know anything.   I’m going to start my way through Codeacademy’s website modules to get started but then…?  Ruby? Python?  PHP? JavaScript?    I definitely want to do their MySQL module, and then I have no idea.

Ideas, Gentle Reader?